Finding righteous currents in turbulent times

Archive for the tag “genetics”

For years, white tigers have been inbred with one another to maintain their regal, milky coats. It’s an unsustainable practice that causes a host of problems. So is there a safe way to keep the White Tiger white? Scientists think they’ve found the answer.

Ever since a monk called Mendel started breeding pea plants, we’ve been learning about our genomes. In 1953, Watson, Crick and Franklin described the structure of the molecule that makes up our genomes: the DNA double helix. Then, in 2001, scientists wrote down the entire 3-billion letter code contained in the average human genome. Now they’re trying to interpret that code; to work out how it’s used to make different types of cells and different people. The ENCODE project, as it’s called, is the latest chapter in the story of you. — Nature.com